[littlemanpoet]

Sorry, Child, I'm not usually this sure of myself on an issue, and I guess I got a little * ahem * emphatic. Sorry if I upset you. Being sure of myself tends to bring out that masculine bull-in-the-chinashop side of me and then I start to - er - plow, as it were.

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I'm really interested by this, elempi, but I'd like you to elaborate before I go on because I want to be sure I understand your point. Are you saying that Tolkien's men were Romantic men, prone to idealising women?

Yes. Some of them. Your question made me reconsider some men that I had not yet thought about: Aragorn, for instance. He doesn't idealize Arwen, which is rather surprising. Nor does Faramir idealize Eowyn. Nor does Sam idealize Rosy. It seems that all the men who ended up marrying in LotR, did NOT, as a matter of fact, idealize the main woman in their lives. This is curious. The men that stand out as idealizers of some woman are Gimli and Frodo. Elves sang the praises of Elbereth, surely an ideal female; and outside LotR but inside the Legendarium you have Beren and Thingol who did in fact marry those whom they idealized. Interesting.

What other character traits, other than their attitude to women, does the Romantic man have?

I'll have to come back to this later when I have more time.

I was for example irritated by the change in Aragorn's character from book to film because he was given flaws and doubts that the book-Aragorn did not have - the book-Aragorn had a mission and purpose which he was constantly striving for, he was at no point "running away" from his destiny. Is this the kind of thing you mean?

This is an interesting point. There is a masculinity issue revolving around it, I believe; but it strikes me that the characteristic you are describing is not Romantic man, but a righteous man. This is something that irritates the modern critic to no end, because righteousness is, well, passé (which is a real shame). I suppose righteousness in a man is one of those things that "the sixpence equals", to refer to another thread. It is believed that righteousness in a man is simply unrealistic: "He must be hiding some hideous secret. No-one is that good!" Righteousness is considered to be 2-dimensional, shallow; yet Aragorn and Faramir - and Gandalf - are most certainly not two-dimensional characters! They are criticized for being so on the grounds that they are good, but that's not the same as being poorly written. This masculine righteousness could be an additional aspect of "writing in the spirit of Tolkien".